Medication administration in the operating room: new standards and recommendations

Anesthesia is one of the few areas in healthcare with no secondary verification of medication administration, yet it also has the highest number of administered medications, most of which are high-alert medications. Anesthetists often prescribe, dispense, mix, relabel, administer, and document medications without secondary verification. To increase patient safety, vigilance is one of the basic principles of anesthesia delivery in addition to the other fundamentals of medication administration. The Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation recommends implementing standardizations, barcode medication administration, and the use of prefilled or premixed syringes to assist in the safe delivery of anesthesia. It has been shown that adhering to the principles outlined by the Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation reduces the number of adverse drug events and results in safer care of patients.